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Bourbon
Bourbon (Бурбон in Russian Cyrillic) is a trader, drifter, survivor, criminal, and adventurer, all rolled into one man. He is a seasoned professional who has seen everything the metro and surface has to offer, and lived to tell the tale. Overview Artyom and Bourbon first meet in Riga, which is on security lockdown due to a recent anomaly and a particularly large infestation of nosalises in the tunnels nearby. Bourbon is the stereotypical bastard with a heart of gold. He owes a lot of money to a lot of people, clearly having a history with a group of Bandits, and knows how to handle himself in a fight. In a sense, he comes across as someone who ran with the brigands and (at least tried to) go legitimate; his supportive nature of Artyom and attempts to tell Artyom about the various threats they face seem to stem from Bourbon trying to show Artyom the ropes. While this may initially be dismissed as self-interest on Bourbon's part, the truth of the matter becomes more apparent as you go further into the game; Bourbon is genuinely impressed with Artyom's ability to handle himself and his will to survive. Bourbon does, indeed, make good on his original deal to give Artyom his AK-74 at Dry Station - if you turn around in the duct, the weapon will be waiting for Artyom to collect if he wants it. Even in the end, as Bourbon faces off against the bandit leader, his first instinct is to protect Artyom, indicating that he genuinely cares for him. He is referred to by the bandits as "Bourbon the Huckster", which implies that he was a trader of low quality, high quantity goods - a form of wholesaler for shoddy merchandise, and that he has done business with them before, possibly why he may have become in debt with this particular group of bandits. Khan also appears to have a history with Bourbon; his dialogue hints that he knew of Bourbon, and of his apparent attempt to go legitimate. He refers to Bourbon's death as "Regrettable, but not entirely unexpected", indicating that while he suspected this would be Bourbon's fate, he perhaps saw the decency in the man's final moments - or perhaps Khan knew more than he let on. Regardless, Bourbon is a character who is a major driving force for a good part of the game, and reveals himself to be good-hearted, if shady and with a clearly gritty past. The advice he gives Artyom is sagacious and will serve him the entire game - and likely beyond. Game History Bourbon and Artyom form an unsteady alliance; whilst Artyom ponders Bourbon's true motives, Bourbon, in a surprising turn of events, turns out to be quite on the level. The deal is simple: if Artyom helps Bourbon get to Dry Station to pay back an old friend of his, then Bourbon will give Artyom his Kalash. Bourbon's true motives and actual name remain unknown. Bourbon does not believe in the supernatural and dismisses ghosts, anomalies, and psychic phenomenon as nothing but distractions of the mind. The two cover a lot of ground, from Riga to Market Station, and through the frozen wastes of downtown Moscow, during which Artyom and Bourbon face down many obstacles, including a nest full of bandits that ambushed a convoy headed for Hansa, a psychic phenomenon, and watchers and demons. Throughout all of this, Bourbon, despite his coarse demeanor, constant cynicism, and sordid past, takes a paternal and guiding attitude with Artyom, teaching him the basics of stealth assaults, avoiding traps, seeking out ranger supply caches, the dangers of water on the surface, and of methods for circumventing foes. The two become separated for a time, but Bourbon waits at a checkpoint for Artyom. He is later surprised when Artyom arrives, the trek having taken Artyom quite a while and Bourbon fearing the worst. Eventually, the pair, fleeing watchers and demons, arrive in Dry Station, where Bourbon quietly stashes his gear with Artyom and goes to meet with his old friend in Dry himself. Unfortunately, Bourbon's friend - the old boss of the bandits - has been replaced with one of his former subordinates - one who holds a serious grudge against Bourbon. Bourbon is beaten and dragged off by the brigands. Artyom attempts a rescue, aided, in secret, by Khan, who quietly snipes several enemies in the bandit hideout. When he arrives in the Leader's room, Bourbon is being interrogated. Bourbon takes advantage of the chaos to throw the leader backwards, and to protect Artyom, he fires a revolver on the Bandit leader, hitting him in the neck. The bandit leader, however, at the same time, grabs a Kalash and shoots at Bourbon; piercing his abdomen. Both Bourbon and the bandit leader die. Artyom laments his death in the following chapter, when heading through the tunnels with Khan. In the Novel After rescuing his crew from the pipes' gas, Artyom encounters Bourbon at the Prospect Mira station. The man asks Artyom to aid him during his trip along the Sucharevska line. Bourbon explains that since Artyom seems to be immune to the strange gas, he would be able to save him if anything happens on the way. Seeing possible opportunity to get to Polis Artyom agrees. When Bourbon asks for the price Artyom specifies it to be 2 magazines (60) worth of ammo and food supplies. Before they enter the tunnel Bourbon pledges his weapon to Artyom, just in case. Unfortunately during the way both Artyom and Bourbon start to act weirdly: Artyom becomes very talkative while Bourbon starts to chant very odd text, which turns out to be an excerpt of one of books that Polis' Brahmins search for, finishing the speech with "now I'm dead" then dropping to the ground - lifeless. Artyom tries to drag the man's body to the nearest station but to no avail. When Artyom was about to loose himself, Khan comes to the rescue, taking Bourbon's backpack and convincing Artyom to follow him leaving the other man's body behind. After having a short nap, Artyom tries to get back to the tunnel where he left Bourbon's body to bury him properly. He couldn't shake off the bitterness that he wasn't able to help the man. Khan assures him that he already took care of that matter. Later that day Artyom learns, when he was scavenging through man's belongings, that Bourbon wasn't going to pay him. Khan advises him to take his belongings as a payment. Reluctantly Artyom agrees to take Bourbon's Kalash in exchange. Another of Bourbon's belongings turned out to be the "Guide" - a map of the Metro which is known to have semi-magical properties - seeing the discovery Khan voiced his desire to exchange this "artifact" for a normal map of the metro (assuring Artyom that he wouldn't be able to read it properly anyway) Artyom gladly accepts the offer and is visibly relieved when Khan says the "burden" is taken from him. Trivia In the Metro 2033 Novel * In the novel, Bourbon is only a bit older than Artyom. *In the novel, Bourbon's death is significantly different. It has no relation to bandits or hostile humans, but occurs through a supernatural phenomenon that is never explained. Moments before his death, Bourbon starts a speech with "I am dead". He then becomes weaker, and finally collapses and dies, leaving Artyom alone to be rescued by Khan. In the Metro 2033 Game * Bourbon refers to his Kalash as an AK (AK-74M), this would be the only time in the game someone would refer to the Kalash as an "Avtomat Kalashnikova". Even though its clearly an AK-74M, everywhere else it is always referred to as a "Kalash" (It was renamed due to copyright). *On Dead City 1, if the player runs ahead and tries to jump across the ledge with the car on it, he will hit an invisible barrier and fall into irradiated water. * In the game, Bourbon is more sympathetic than he is in the book (in the book it is implied that he planned to kill Artyom after passing through the dangerous tunnels, rather than paying him). * If Artyom does not have enough gas mask filters in Market station, Bourbon will give him some. Along with Miller, he is the only NPC will give Artyom spare filters. * In the chapter Dry Station, when the bandit is beating up Bourbon, he makes the same "pain sound" like the main characters from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R franchise. *In Exhibition, there is a man who looks very similar to and has the same voice as Bourbon. He has a different jacket on, although he wears a similar black beanie. He is located in the market section of the station, across from the weapons vendor. He is sitting at a table talking to a man about how he prefers to travel alone, or with one other person. The man then says, however, that he would want many others with him when he went in the tunnel between Dry Station and Cursed Station. This set of similarities is quite likely to be intentional as in the novel, Bourbon tells Artyom this same tale nearly word for word. * Bourbon is one of two friendly characters who uses a similar gas mask as Artyom does. The other one is Vladimir. * In the chapter Lost Tunnels, if the player shoots at the rats scampering across the ground, Bourbon will joke about Artyom's fear of rats. * Bourbon, along with Miller, Pavel, Ulman and Khan is considered one of the main companions in the game Metro 2033 * At the bar in Riga, while Artyom is being congratulated by the other survivors from Exhibition after fending off the nosalises, Bourbon can be seen sitting at the bar counter. He walks out during the second toast, glancing briefly at Artyom as he passes. *In the Russian dub Bourbon uses a heavy mixture of Russian criminal, jail and obscene slangs, and sings out "Vladimirsky Central", a chanson song about a criminal sent to Vladimir Central Prison. A different couplet of it is sung by a drunken bandit on the Lost Tunnels level. In the English dub "Soldatushki", an old Russian soldier's song. *In Market Station, while walking with Artyom, Bourbon states "We'd be lucky if they let us shovel shit for the rest of our days". This is likely a reference to the novel, where Artyom loses a wager in a rat race, and must shovel pig manure for a year. Luckily, Artyom escapes. Behind the scenes *Bourbon is a sandwich biscuit with a layer of icing in between commonly referred to as a Bourbon Biscuit for obvious reasons. Bugs *In Riga Bourbon's automatic shotgun has a bayonet and at Dry Station it disappears, the bayonet may be seen in Dead City 1 and 2 as well. *During the level Lost Tunnel if the player silently kills the bandits he first encounters instead of Bourbon, Bourbon will still act like he killed him. *There is a bug with Bourbon upon arrival at the Market, it is unknown what causes it, but sometimes he will freeze and won't speak to the player, leaving the game unable to progress. It could possible be due to running ahead of Bourbon to the market before he's finished talking and giving the player money to purchase gas mask filters. *In Dead City 1, after leaving the station's building, Bourbon hears the howl of the demon, then he grunts "what the hell?" in a completly different voice and a weak tone. This hasn't been subtitled either. Category:Characters